May 14, 2009
I'm not sure why the uptick rule was ever removed in the first place. It could be that the big wigs at the SEC and their friends at the big firms had some sort of plan togehter to remove it at the perfect time. Just when the bubble was about to truely burst. Anyone that has ever traded the markets knows how hard it was to short a stock prior to the removal of the uptick. YOU COULD NOT BEAR RAID like you can now. Just look at charts of stocks that fell before July 2007 to charts after. State Street, Bear Stears, Lehman, and many others moved down over 50% in value in a matter of minutes. The big firms made BILLIONS of dollars all the way down while completely wipping out millions of peoples acct values. Anyone can look and see just how easy it is to manipulate stocks now that the "exchange floor" is non exisitent and "super computers" really just trade stocks and manipulate prices. BRING BACK THE UPTICK AND GET RID OF THE "HYBRID" SYSTEM. Let the Specialtist on the floor trade the stocks. It has worked for hundreds of years.